Dusty Springfield, the Sixties pop star whose brooding, soulful voice won her international acclaim, has died after a five-year battle against cancer.

The 59-year-old singer died at home in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, on Tuesday, the day she should have attended a Buckingham Palace investiture after being awarded the OBE in the New Year Honours. Because it was known that Dusty would be too ill to receive the award in person, arrangements were made for it to be collected by her manager, Vicki Wickham, 11 days ago.

It was presented to her in a private gathering at her bedside in the Royal Marsden Hospital in west London. The Queen was said to be "saddened" at news of the singer's death so soon after she was honoured.

Later this month, Dusty was to receive further recognition, with her inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. A four-CD boxed set of her work, prepared with her blessing, is due for release later this year.

Mike Gill, who worked with her for more than 30 years, as press agent and later looking after her back catalogue, said: "Hers was the greatest voice ever produced by a female in this country and she could never be impersonated."

Born Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien in north London, Dusty began her career as member of the Lana Sisters in the Fifties. Later, she changed her name to form the pop-folk trio The Springfields, which also included her brother, Tom.

After five hits, notably "Island of Dreams" and "Say I Want Be There," the trio split up and she embarked on a solo career. Watching The Beatles play the Cavern club in Liverpool, The Springfields had seen "the writing on the wall" for their style of music.

In 1964, her first big solo hit, "I Only Want To Be With You," was also the first song to be played on the BBC television programme, Top of the Pops. Among a string of other successes were "Son-Of-A Preacher" and her million-selling 1966 number one hit, "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me."

Although she resented constant speculation about her private life, she was once described as "the first woman in pop publicaly assumed to be gay" and occasionally spoke openly about her sexuality. In 1988, she told the News of the World that she had had sexual relations with men and women.

Eighteen years earlier, London's Evening Standard had quoted her as saying: "I don't go leaping around to all the gay clubs but I can be flattered. Girls run after me a lot and it doesn't upset me. I couldn't stand to be thought to be a big butch lady, but I know that I'm as perfectly capable of being swayed by a girl as by a boy."

Dusty also had personal struggles with alcohol and drugs, admitting at one stage that she "lost nearly all the Seventies". Her career collapsed and she lived a reclusive life for many years until a collaboration with the Pet Shop Boys took her back into the charts in 1987.

She was first diagnosed as suffering from breast cancer in 1994. She was given the all-clear after surgery, but the disease recurred after three years.

When initially told she had cancer, Dusty was philosophical. She said: "I shed about three tears and then said, 'Let's have lunch'. My brother came, the neighbours, my secretary, my accountant. I had a really good time. That's the spirit of my family, as if to say: 'Oh, to Hell with it'.

"It was only when I came home one night and saw my cat lying asleep that I thought, 'Who's going to look after you?' It was as if somebody had run a train through me. I wept and wept and wept because then I realised: it is you. Yes, it might kill you."

Dusty's concerns for her pet have been met. She arranged for the cat, a 12-year-old Californian ragdoll called Nicholas, to be adopted by Lee Everett-Alkin, widow of the late disc-jockey Kenny Everett. Ms Wickham said: "Nicholas had been in the home of Lee many times. We can be sure he will be looked after splendidly."

Colin Randall,
The Telegraph (London),
March 4, 1999